Infinity Social Updates

Two Levies personnel guarding a polio vaccination team were gunned down on Wednesday by unidentified attackers in Balochistan’s Mastung district, according to an official. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries where polio remains endemic, and vaccination teams are frequently targeted by militants waging a campaign against security forces. “The unfortunate incident occurred in the Teeri area of ​​Mastung where Levies personnel assigned to guard a polio vaccination team were attacked,” Mastung Assistant Commissioner Akram Harifal told Dawn.com . “While one of the personnel died on the scene, the other succumbed to his injuries while he was being shifted to the Nawab Ghous Bakhsh Memorial Hospital,” he added. AC Harifal also said that he reached the scene as soon as he received the information about the incident, adding that the police and other law enforcement officials were already present there and collecting evidence. He added that security for the polio vaccination t...

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah on Tuesday for his third visit as premier to the oil-rich Gulf kingdom. The trip comes a day after Modi held high-level talks with US Vice President JD Vance in India, with New Delhi looking to seal a trade deal with Washington and stave off punishing tariffs. “India deeply values its long and historic ties with Saudi Arabia that have acquired strategic depth and momentum in recent years,” said Modi in a statement released by his office. “Together, we have developed a mutually beneficial and substantive partnership.” Pictures posted on Modi’s X account showed the premier being greeted by several Saudi officials after touching down in Jeddah in the afternoon. Saudi Arabia has been a key supplier of oil to India, the world’s most populous country, for years. India’s rapidly developing economy relies heavily on petroleum imports, with Saudi Arabia ranked as its third-largest supplier according to the Indian for...

Pushed out of Pakistan where she was born, Nazmine Khan’s first experience of her country, Afghanistan, was in a sweltering tent at a border camp. “We never thought we would return to Afghanistan,” said the 15-year-old girl, who has little idea of what will become of her or her family, only that she is likely to have fewer freedoms. “When our parents told us we had to leave, we cried,” added Nazmine. Having nowhere to go in Afghanistan, she and six other family members shared a stifling tent in the Omari camp near the Torkham border point. Islamabad, accusing Afghans of links to narcotics and “supporting terrorism”, announced a new campaign in March to expel hundreds of thousands of Afghans, with or without documents. Many had lived in Pakistan for decades after fleeing successive wars and crises but did not wait to be arrested by Pakistani forces before leaving, seeing their removal as inevitable. Since April 1, more than 92,000 Afghans have been sent back to their country of or...

Neeraj Chopra will tick off an item in his bucket list with an eponymous javelin competition in Bengaluru next month but the poster boy of Indian athletics has also added a new one to it — watching a Diamond League event in the country. The Neeraj Chopra Classic on May 24 will be a World Athletics Gold category event featuring former world champions Anderson Peters and Julius Yego, 2016 Olympic winner Thomas Roehler and American Curtis Thompson among others. Chopra, who won the gold at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics but settled for silver behind Arshad Nadeem in Paris last year, could not confirm the participation of his Pakistani frenemy though. “He is consulting his coach but has not confirmed his participation yet,” Chopra told a virtual press conference on Monday. “Like other top throwers, Arshad too has been invited. It will involve government (permission). Once everything is confirmed, we will know the final list.” India and Pakistan have suspended bilateral cricket over their ...

Pope Francis , the first Latin American leader of the Roman Catholic Church, has died , the Vatican said in a video statement on Monday. He was 88 years old and had recently suffered a serious bout of double pneumonia. However, his death came as a shock after he had been driven around St. Peter’s Square in an open-air popemobile to greet cheering crowds on Easter Sunday. Pope Francis changed the face of the modern papacy more than any predecessor by shunning much of its pomp and privilege, but his attempts to make the Catholic Church more inclusive and less judgmental made him an enemy to conservatives nostalgic for a traditional past. Condolences from leaders around the world streamed in following the news, with people highlighting Pope Francis’s various contributions, services and stances. Listed below are some of those reactions. South Asia President Asif Ali Zardari expressed deep sorrow and paid tribute to the late Pope’s commitment to “interfaith harmony, compassion an...

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Monday inaugurated a provincial week-long polio eradication campaign — set to run from April 21 to 27 — reaffirming the government’s commitment to setting the province free from the crippling disease, according to a statement issued by his office. Pakistan is one of the last two countries in the world, alongside Afghanistan, where polio remains endemic. Despite global efforts to eradicate the virus, challenges such as security issues, vaccine hesitancy, and misinformation have slowed progress. Last year, the country reported more than 70 polio cases. “At the inauguration ceremony, CM Murad administered polio drops to children to formally launch the campaign, which will target over 10.6m children across Sindh, including 2.76m in Karachi,” the statement read. The campaign will be driven by a “force of 69,724 trained frontline workers, who will go door-to-door, visit schools, shopping malls, and transit points to ensure that no child is left...

An organiser of a weeks-long sit-in being held in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Parachinar city located in Kurram district against the prolonged closure of Parachinar-Thall Road was arrested on Sunday, the police said. The Thall-Parachinar Road — the only thoroughfare leading to the city — has been closed since the Nov 21, 2024 attack on a convoy in the Bagan area that left more than 50 dead . Ensuing clashes stemming from decades-old land disputes claimed at least 130 more lives . A ceasefire agreement reached in January suffered setbacks as attacks continued on aid and government convoys. However, tribal leaders again agreed on an eight-month truce on March 29. “The Kurram police have arrested Malik Zartaj in Upper Kurram [tehsil] and Imran Maqbool in Lower Kurram [tehsil],” said a statement from the district police officer’s office, confirming the detention of Zartaj, who was among the leaders of the sit-in that began on March 2 . However, it did not specify any reason for the arr...